Civic Si (L15CA) Reliability

[MrAnd3rS0n]

I recently watched Ososik’s engine blow after all the mods and tuning he's done to it, then the engine teardown after. He mentioned the L15CA seemed to be weaker than the L15B7. Is that true, or was he perhaps throwing more at it than he was his 10th gen with the L15B7? I've seen a few comments about the L15CA being stronger than the L15B7, but not sure if that's true or not.

I plan on keeping my car completely stock powertrain wise. Is there anything I need to worry about in stock form?

I know it's a Honda and that's the reason I chose it, but are these engines particularly weak or just can't handle a ton of extra power that previous engines were capable of, like a K24 for example.

 

[chopsuey34]

The 1.5T is a good engine in stock form. Hundreds of thousands of turbocharged Civics in North America and the rest world have successfully used it in a variety of climates (Toronto winters / Arizona desert summers, etc). Oil dilution was almost assuredly fixed by Honda with the new gen cars and was only an issue if owners never let their cars fully warm up in cold climates to burn off the gas.

I saw that Ososik vid in my youtube recommendations a few days ago. I can't comment on if the 11th gen engine is weaker than the 10th. I'm no expert, but from my readings of the CivicX forum, the 10th gen engine is generally stout when tuned up to 300hp. 11th gen is probably the similar. Someone more knowledgeable than me can chime in.

idk what your plans are, but if you want to make huge power, the 2.0T is a much better engine than the 1.5T for tuning potential.

 

[chopsuey34]

Its a lazy Sunday, here's the info straight from Consumer Reports regarding Civic powertrain reliability:

 

[FK7_]

Its a lazy Sunday, here's the info straight from Consumer Reports regarding Civic powertrain reliability:

This means nothing when tuning a civic. Ososik has stated in his videos that the L15 in the 11gen Si has weaker internals. They threw more power at a stock 10gen and it held the power fine through tons of abuse. Unfortunately for the new Si it doesn’t seem to be the case but it takes more than one person pushing the limit to find that out. We will know better in about 2 years after more people have tuned them.

 

[MrAnd3rS0n]

This means nothing when tuning a civic. Ososik has stated in his videos that the L15 in the 11gen Si has weaker internals. They threw more power at a stock 10gen and it held the power fine through tons of abuse. Unfortunately for the new Si it doesn’t seem to be the case but it takes more than one person pushing the limit to find that out. We will know better in about 2 years after more people have tuned them.

Him saying it has weaker internals isn’t what I had heard from others, so I just wasn’t sure who to believe.

I plan on keeping mine stock, so not too worried about that. I was just wondering if it was weak even in stock form and if I would have anything to worry about.

 

[Naija Bull]

I remember the 10th gen Hatch 1.5T engines being weaker than the 10th gen Sedan/Coupe 1.5T engines. I wonder if this generation Si is more closely related to the 10th gen Hatch than the Sedans/Coupes hence why it might be weaker.

 

[DYI01]

It seemed like they were running an extremely aggressive tune on the car with straight E-85 to push the limits of the engine. No tuner worth a crap would push the limits like this on a customer car.

At the end of the video they go over the traction control settings, and if you don't know or didn't catch it, the tune retarded timing heavily to reduce wheel slip. My thought is with that reduced timing it caused a backfire similar to a two-step which is extremely hard on the rods.

 

[zeroptzero]

The engine is only weak when you throw 30 psi at it with a crappy tune. Since they had no idea what they were doing with this car, their comments about the comparison between both engines means nothing IMO. The could not have orchestrated a better engine blow up than that for youtube drama / attention/ views.

 

[FK7_]

Does anyone here know who Ososik is lol. He’s built some pretty damn fast L15’s, so I’d listen to him about what he thinks.

 

[AbeTypeR]

I'll leave this right here

 

[MrAnd3rS0n]

I'll leave this right here

I've watched that video. It was discussed over on the 10th gen site.

https://www.civicx.com/forum/threads/why-the-l15-engine-is-just-not-worth-building.78710/

 

[AbeTypeR]

I











I've watched that video. It was discussed over on the 10th gen site.







https://www.civicx.com/forum/threads/why-the-l15-engine-is-just-not-worth-building.78710/

I personally wouldn't push the engine at all. The guy who made that video makes a lot of money from replacing blown L15s.

 

[MrAnd3rS0n]

I personally wouldn't push the engine at all. The guy who made that video makes a lot of money from replacing blown L15s.

I'm not tuning mine at all. Just wanted to know that even if this engine doesn't hold up to high power like previous engines, should I still feel like I have a reliable Honda I don't have to worry to much about if I keep it stock.

 

[AbeTypeR]

I'm not tuning mine at all. Just wanted to know that even if this engine doesn't hold up to high power like previous engines, should I still feel like I have a reliable Honda I don't have to worry to much about if I keep it stock.

Keeping it stock and doing regular maintenance should be a great engine.

 

[Village911]

Blew up the first 2023 Acura Integra! Motor Tear Down: